Continued... We got to the station just in time for the next train to Winchester however the first 40min of the journey was spent standing up quite squashed in the toilet/door area as the train was packed full. Thankfully the rest of the trip we were able to find some seats and so it went quite quickly. We arrived in Winchester about 4.30 and were greeted by Tim (same Tim I had picnic with the other day) who then took us for a little tour around the city of Winchester via the comfy car. We then parked and had a short walk around the main areas including the big cathedral and the main shopping street.

It's a gorgeous little town and I actually remembered quite a bit of it from when we visited many years ago. After our wander we got back in the car and drove through the beautiful English country side (which Tim put well – looks like the Microsoft screensaver!) for about 20mins before arriving at Tim and Jans house. We were welcomed into a lovely little house by Jan and Robbie where we had some nice tea and cake and got to relax around for a while. It was nice to relax and sit and watch tv and do nothing as well as be able to do some washing and have a real shower! After all this it was dinner time which was absolutely delicious and consisted of spicy roast chicken, satay sweet potato bake and yummy garlic vegies, followed by apple and rhubarb pie with hot custard – yuuuum!

Thanks Tim and Jan for your hospitality J After dinner we all sat down and watched Marley and Me which made me tear up as usual, even more so coz I was missing Lilly! And then we all just headed to bed nice and early (because travelling is oh so exhausting – tough life!)

Monday 16th April

Woke up nice and refreshed after a great sleep in a nice comfy bed and had a great real shower with nice clean towel. Then were treated to a yummy breaky of fresh yoghurt and fruits and toast with vegemite! After breakfast Tim took us out to see Stonehenge which is about 30mins away from their house. On the drive there we passed gorgeous rolling hills and other typical English scenery. We arrived at Stonehenge which is right next to the highway which is quite strange and we headed in (while Tim waited outside reading his book in the sun). We were lucky to get there early enough that we beat most of the huge busloads of tourists. We listened to the audioguide for a while before it got a bit boring and started repeating things it already told us, so we just spent the time wandering the path around the stones.

They are quite spectacular however don't seem quite as big as I remember or as big as they seem in pictures etc. Thankfully the weather was beautiful while we were there unlike last time (years and years ago) when it was pouring rain! After we had done the full circle of Stonehenge we went back out to meet Tim and head back to the house.

By this time we were all a bit peckish as lunch was approaching and so back at the house we all had a typical English 'snack’ of bacon butties – basically a bacon sandwich mmm. After lunch we all packed up our stuff and then we all went for a walk with Tim, Jan and Robbie around their town. It’s a very cute town with thatched roofs and a small community with a little store and church and pub. It took all of 15mins to walk pretty much through the whole town and back to their house, but it was a lovely walk.

It was then time to say goodbye to Jan and Robbie and the house while Tim drove us back to Winchester and it was then time to say goodbye to Tim. Thanks again to Tim and Jan for having us and feeding us and driving us around!

We were at the station with our bags and decided to walk down the road to go and check our Arthurs round table before we got the train back, however when we got close to it we couldn’t get through the road as it was completely blocked off by police tape. We wandered around and tried to find out what was happening, as there were also loads of office workers just wandering the streets. Turned out that there was a bomb scare at one of the buildings in the city and half of it was now blocked off and evacuated, so unfortunately we weren’t able to go see it (don’t worry, the town was fine and no bomb went off!). To Be Continued...